


hysterics

by Anonymous



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks, and good listeners, but it ends soft, it ends cute i promise, we love soft bfs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sometimes it's all too much and the panic settles in. The heart in his chest feels like it's collapsing and he only has mere minutes to live. Don't touch him right now.tl;dr - Ryan has a panic attack





	hysterics

**Author's Note:**

> tw / panic attacks
> 
> yo, yo, yo polythene at it again. anyway the bfu fandom has a lot of panic attack fics but they always seem to have shane kissing ryan out of it.. so here's one where we have the opposite bc the last thing i want during a panic attack is someone touching me woo

    “Oh, oh no.. oh no, no, no,” Ryan whispered to himself as Shane closed the bathroom door behind him. There was nothing fun about being in this small space with only a flashlight and camera to keep him company. Nor was there anything comforting about the thoughts running rampant through his mind. Sure they were the thoughts he always had every time he was pushed into this kind of situation but he hadn’t gotten used to them and he sure as hell wasn’t going to push them aside when a shiver raced down his spine. It turned into pinpricks on his lower back and he stepped forward muttering a small, “Christ…”

    The grimy glass blurred his reflection but it was definitely his own face looking back, something about the darkened mirror image was haunting despite this knowledge. Logically Ryan knew he wasn’t actually being watched. That the hand he swore touched his shoulder just before entering the small space was just Shane being an asshole, despite the latter’s adamant denial of the accusation. That the weight on his chest-- “Yes, Shane, only in this room!” --was just nerves bubbling up between his heart, lungs and diaphragm. Logically Ryan knew all of this but he’d be lying if he believed that what was happening was explainable by the hard logic his counterpart followed.

    Standing alone in this bathroom made the hairs on his arms stand up like there were a million eyes on him. He could sense them staring him down, breathing down his neck and crawling their way into his ears and nose. He felt the pressure of their presence festering in his stomach and he suddenly wanted to turn away from his reflection but feared that if he dared something would exit the glass and filmy coat to consume him entirely. His heart skipped a beat when his peripheral clouded for a moment, he blinked. Nothing.

    Ryan’s hands shook and he cursed himself for it, he’d have to stabilize the hell out of the footage. Placing the camera on the edge of the sink he ran his hands through his hair and nearly jumped out of his skin when a knock came from the door. His hands gripped the edge of the sink while feigning a laugh, nothing more than a dry exhale of air, “ha, ha, very funny, Shane. You’re a real comedian big guy, seriously, loved that… thanks.”

    Silence had never felt so loud and being alone had never felt so overwhelmingly crowded.

    “Shane?” Ryan said although it sounded more like a question with the way his voice pitched up and then it sounded as if it had been drenched in a bucket of liquid panic when the door handle wouldn’t budge. Ryan realised he had turned his back on the mirror only to be faced with an immovable door. “Shane!”

    His chest was fluttering and his ribcage was collapsing in on his lungs like a Venus flytrap and when a knock came from the door, louder this time, he held steadfast to the handle. Whatever was out there he didn’t want in the bathroom with him and whatever was lurking in the mirror with his reflection was now staring at his exposed back. Pick your poison suddenly had an entirely new meaning and it only added to his dread. The icy tendrils of anxiety wrapped around him, paranoia engulfing his brain and dragging him down.

    The door rattled with a force that made him cry out, his grip slipping from the sweat accumulating on his palms. His heart beat with a pace that was near painful, too fast for it to be humanly possible. His lungs burned and tried to fight against the constriction of his chest. He spun around faster than his brain could manufacture a reason not to. Leaning his weight against the door he stared straight forward into the mirror, his eyes wide and frenzied. His camera went tumbling to the ground the sound of the lens splintering echoed around the room, between the lobes of his brain and he tried to swallow down the fear. It was too much, too much to handle, too much to comprehend.

    His body was going a million miles a minute and a heated pain with an ice core was radiating through his torso. Ryan’s eyes found shapes in darkness as his flashlight rolled away and flickered off. His hold against the door weakened as his knees collided with peeling tile, the scent of mildew assaulting as he tried to gasp in the air to fill his chest. Tears burned his eyes and dripped down his cheeks, his arms shakily holding him up while he rode the wave of panic that had finally swallowed him whole. Maybe there was no demon in the mirror other than the invisible one hiding in his own mind.

    A hand around his ankle made him thrash, screaming as if he’d been grabbed by whatever entity was in there with him. He felt the flooring beneath him change to wooden slats and a dim haze of brightness snuck passed his eyelids, they flew open at the first sign of humanity. There was Shane’s face, all contorted in worry and his hand reaching out for Ryan who pushed it away and scrambled backwards. He pulled his knees up to his chest and stuck his head between them, the sides of his knees pressing into his temples as he attempted to breathe. There was light, there were faces he knew, there was no dark bathroom anymore. He was safe. He was safe.

    Shane tried to touch him again and Ryan recoiled whipping his head up, speaking with a voice that was nothing if not thoroughly petrified, “don’t! Don’t… you can’t… please-- I can’t have people… touching me.” He broke between words, heaving in breaths like a drowned man: he felt like a drowned man. He watched as Shane backed away, hands raised as if Ryan had a gun or was some kind of danger. Then again he did feel like a ticking time-bomb, that any moment he would explode and leave behind nothing except molten flesh and ash. Ryan would have laughed if he could. His brain was still much too chaotic, much too on edge. He wondered for a solitary moment if this is what a bad trip felt like, maybe this is what those folks at Woodstock felt like after they took the brown acid.

    To Shane’s credit, he listened when Ryan said he needed to not be touched. Instead, Ryan heard him instruct the crew out to get something to eat, they’d do something else to fill in missing footage. “No one is to be any wiser as to what happened, alright? This stays in this room and this room only.” Ryan felt his heart lurch at the sentiment. Still, the hairs on his arms stood up when the breeze of someone walked behind him but eventually all the rustling of the room stopped and all Ryan could hear was his own hiccuped breathing and Shane sitting next to him. A distance between them remained. Ryan breathed deeply, breathed until it no longer felt like he was seconds away from a heart attack.

    When he was sure he could face the room without breaking apart into tiny shards like his camera lens Ryan removed his head from between his knees. His hands rubbed at the base of his neck, trying to work out the pain that had been caused by the way he’d been sitting. Though his stomach still felt like it would evacuate his dinner, Ryan knew he’d have to say something eventually. Finally, he turned to Shane who was meticulously fiddling with the damaged camera, his tongue poking out ever-so-slightly in concentration. “Hey, I--”

    “I’m sorry,” Shane said, cutting Ryan off and leaving him a bit at a loss for words. He watched Shane twist the lens to the right, then the left, then back again before continuing, “I know… I know you hate doing that and-- fuck, Ryan --and I shouldn’t’ve made you. Usually, you’re fine, y’know? That makes me sound like I’m blaming you, I’m not, I just-- damn I just assumed, which makes me a royal ass. I just want you to know that I’m sorry I made you do that.”

    Ryan stretched his legs out in front of himself and grabbed the camera, setting it to the side before crossing his legs and turning to Shane. He sat in his own contemplation, watching the flickers of expression that washed over Shane’s face: worry, concern, anger, sincerity. He wondered if Shane had even registered that he was okay now, that the presiding moment of panic and dread had faded into a background concept. A thought that still lay  _ near _ the forefront but at least it wasn’t  _ in _ the forefront. Ryan placed a hand on Shane’s shoulder, and although it still trembled with leftover adrenaline Ryan tried to assuage some guilt. His thumb pressed in gently, forgivingly. Non-verbal communication. He felt like a priest listening to confession, absolving Shane of some made up in-his-head sin that he was somehow responsible for Ryan’s panic.

    His gut churned before he spoke, voice dry and wavering, “it’s not your fault. I could’ve… could have said something beforehand, like that I wasn’t feeling safe and I know you wouldn’t have had me go in there. I panicked, but it’s fine. I’m not fine right now but I’ll be fine soon.” Ryan glanced down at Shane’s hands, without any camera to fiddle with the thumbs twirled around one another then ceased in order to pull at all of the other fingers before going back to their twiddling.

    “You just… I got worried when you shot back so fast, I thought maybe I’d done something that scared you or-- y’know,” Shane said, pulling his knee up and resting his cheek on it, watching Ryan in that laissez-faire way he always did. His hands stopped fidgeting and one pulled Ryan’s hand from his shoulder.

    Ryan sat there in that silence that always settled between two people having a conversation but it no longer seemed too loud. Shane held his one hand in the two of his just gently caressing. It was surprisingly intimate, despite an offending room being a mere few feet away, the cautious way the two seemed to move was nothing if not a few breaths shy of complete love. Admiration and care swirling around Ryan’s chest now, the warmth having nothing cold at its core, nothing sinister. Daring, Ryan slid closer, resting his head on Shane’s shoulder and closing his eyes to get everything he could from the moment.

   “I don’t like being touched when I panic like that, whatever  _ that _ was… it makes everything feel too heavy, too close and constricting. So thanks for listening, even if I was practically hysterical.” Ryan figured Shane had heard him when there was one less hand holding his and that free hand moved to lay just in between his shoulder blades. Shane’s response was spoken so low, so quietly Ryan almost didn’t catch it but when he did his heart blossomed with something akin to courage.

    “Nothing wrong with hysterics, it builds character.”

    A kiss on the shoulder.


End file.
